Category: MEDA101

The technique which most fascinated me in MEDA101 this semester (and which I subsequently decided to focus my final piece on) was continuity editing. I used various shots to narrate Olivia’s movements. A scene from the film The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) had resonated with me for some time. When I viewed it more recently, I noticed the cleverness of the continuity edits and thus decided to replicate that scene for my project.

Experimental, or ‘avante-garde’ cinema, is a model of film-making which steps outside archetypal cinematic conventions. It creatively explores non-linear formats of narrative. It began in the 1920’s, almost a century ago.

Creativity in cinema often comes from escaping conventions, or developing new ones. As such, cinema has been revolutionary media in multiple periods in time, not just when it became mainstream in the 1920’s. This often stems from significant political or social change; including sexual revolution, civil rights and wars.

Discontinuity Mark Cousins once said that continuity editing is the equivalent of using the word “then” in a story. There are three general formats of continuity editing; Temporal connections: the relationship between a symptom and result, for example one shot may show a glass being pushed off a table and the second will show glass […]

Cinematography is the union of art and technology. Its techniques and practices cannot be judged alone. Effective cinematography is that which works for the film and its context. Roles on a film set which integrate to create cinematography include the screenwriter, director, actors and producer above the line. Below the line, important roles include that […]

For my second instalment (view my first here) of Where I’m From, I decided to take a generational approach rather than a personal one. We are digital natives; we were effectively born inside computers and this has had a huge impact on the meaning of our lives. The world has become a computer in itself. This […]

I come from the swing on the tree in my yard, which my mother once told me was magic That’s the first line I came up with in my attempt to replicate George Ella Lyon’s poem Where I’m From. When my family moved to our quaint little farm, my mother dubbed the large ornate tree beside […]